After the first attempts at surviving in Rome, it was natural for me to look for a path toward the environment that had been most familiar to me: the university. In Romania I had been a professor, researcher and author of books and articles. I imagined that, if anywhere in Italy my professional past could be understood, that place ought to be the university.

The experiences that followed quickly showed me, however, that the Italian academic world was difficult to penetrate for a foreigner from the East, even when that foreigner had competence and publications. Between intellectual recognition and institutional integration there was a distance I had not suspected.

Another failed attempt

Arriving in Rome, I had left behind not only my country, but also a career I loved and in which I had invested years of work. I had been a professor of technical computer science and had contributed to training entire generations of students and to promoting research in my field; I had participated in conferences, written books and published articles. There I felt respected and appreciated by colleagues. Now, having arrived in this new Italian universe and preparing to cross the ocean to America, convinced that I had something valuable to offer, I hoped that my experience might be of use here, in Italy. In Italy, a country known for academic excellence, though not necessarily for innovation in information technology, I thought I would find at least one open door. The desire to be able to contribute my knowledge to Italian computer science education collided, however, with the reality that I not only lacked a stable status, but no one even knew of my presence in Italy.

La Sapienza University

I decided that I had to try to make myself known. So, one morning, having nothing concrete to do, I decided to go to the central headquarters of the University of La Sapienza, Rome's renowned academic institution, where the Department of Computer Science was also located. I carefully prepared a few words in Italian, aware that any poorly pronounced sentence could put me in a bad light. At the secretary's office I was directed to the office of the vice-dean, Professor X. When I reached his door, I waited until the student who had just come out closed it. I knocked, and after a short answer, I went in.

The vice-dean's office was a spacious but dark, grey room. Far away, at the other end of the room, the vice-dean was seated at a massive desk. Because of the distance and the darkness, I could not see his facial expression well. I advanced a few steps and addressed to him the words I had prepared: “I am Professor L.S. from Romania and I would like to speak with you.”

His harsh gaze — as if I had disturbed him from an activity of the utmost importance — suddenly lifted from the documents he was working on and struck me. I saw in it not only distrust, but almost a repulsion I could not explain. And, in a thunderous voice, he shouted only: “Fuori, fuori!” The echo of the two words resounded in the room. I stood perplexed for a few moments, then left without saying another word, overwhelmed by a feeling of humiliation.

The whole scene lasted only a few seconds, but the sense of humiliation would last much longer. On my way home, I wondered what I had done wrong. I replayed the scene in my mind and could find no fault of mine: I had introduced myself politely, I had been restrained in my movements. Was it my words, my accent, or perhaps the fact that I was not Italian? For the first time since leaving Romania, I felt like a foreigner in the true sense of the word — a foreigner tolerated only as long as he remained silent.

The meeting with Böhm

At home, I wrote several letters to my professor friends, telling them what had happened. Among them was V.B., an exceptional former student who had emigrated to the United States in the 1970s and, after obtaining his doctorate in theoretical computer science at MIT, had become a professor at the prestigious University of Pennsylvania. To my surprise, a few days after I sent him the letter, he called me and, in his warm, empathetic voice, told me that he himself had encountered similar reactions at the beginning of his academic career in America. Then he said: “Perhaps you should talk to Corrado Böhm. You know, he is a professor at La Sapienza and was a member of my doctoral committee at MIT. If anyone in Rome can give you advice about this, it is him. He is a man of rare openness. He will certainly understand your situation and advise you. I will call him and ask him to receive you.”

The name of Corrado Böhm was familiar to me; he was a legendary figure in computer science, and the mere idea of meeting him restored my confidence in the scientific world. In 1966, Böhm and his colleague Iacopini published an article proving a theorem according to which any algorithm can be implemented, in the programming phase, using only three types of control structures in addition to elementary instructions: sequence, selection and iteration (loop). The theorem was fundamental for the assertion, the following year, of structured programming, a programming paradigm that appeared and revolutionized the writing of programs. It contributed to limiting, if not eliminating, the reckless use of the “go to” statement, provided in various programming languages, which allowed unconditional jumps from one point of the code to another, generating confused and disorderly code known as “spaghetti code” — a derogatory term used for source code characterized by an unclear and chaotic structure. The meeting with Böhm seemed to me a chance to reconnect with the academic community to which I had aspired so much.

I gathered my courage and called him at the number V.B. had given me, and a few days later we met in the university room where he taught. Unlike the experience with the vice-dean, the meeting with Böhm was full of warmth. Despite his age, Böhm had a contagious vitality and a rare openness of mind. After I introduced myself and told him how the meeting with his colleague had gone, Böhm smiled knowingly and said:

“You must not be surprised,” he told me in a gentle voice. “Here we are in Italy.”

There was a brief pause, then he continued:

“I too encountered obstacles. Even though I am Italian, I studied in Switzerland, and when I returned, there were years of waiting before I managed to integrate. Here, professors are a clan, a closed community for those who come from outside. It is hard for anyone to enter, let alone for a foreigner. They accept into their clan only those close to them — children, relatives.”

The meeting with Böhm did not solve my problems, but it offered me a painful explanation. It showed me that, for a refugee like me, entering the Italian academic world was almost impossible. Years later, his words were confirmed countless times. I never forgot that meeting — not only because I had met a legend of computer science, but because, through his openness and honesty, Böhm showed me a truth that, as a refugee, I had to know: the Italian academic world was a fortress; entering that world did not depend only on competence, but also on sacrifice and boundless patience.

I told myself, however, that in America things would be different, that there, perhaps, such practices did not exist. This hope gave me the strength to continue.

Degree recognition

“Here, professors are a clan, a closed community for those who come from outside. It is hard for anyone to enter, let alone for a foreigner. They accept into their clan only those close to them — children, relatives.”

With these words, Corrado Böhm confirmed something I did not at first want to believe. In the years that followed, I saw how the Italian academic system, closed and traditionalist, favored the careers only of professors' acquaintances or of those already inside the clan, and kept away outsiders even when they had the necessary training and experience. Böhm opened my eyes to the obstacles I would encounter as a foreigner and mentally prepared me for future trials, should I remain in Italy. I left the meeting with him with a mixture of bitterness and admiration. In Italy, its beauty and culture unfortunately also revealed a less luminous side. From then on, I learned to preserve my trust in myself, remembering Böhm's words — a silent encouragement to persevere, whatever the obstacles.

The later confirmation

This impression of mine was not wrong; I verified it in my first year in Rome, when I decided to have my studies recognized, an effort that proved useless in industry, since no one in Italy or abroad ever asked me to certify my work with an academic title, but it would have been necessary had I decided on a teaching career. For the recognition of my degree, with my mother's help from Bucharest, I submitted to the Faculty of Engineering of the University of La Sapienza in Rome copies translated into Italian and authenticated at the Italian Consulate in Bucharest of my diplomas and grades for the courses I had attended twenty-five years earlier in the Automation specialization. After analyzing the documentation, the professional council of the Faculty of Engineering decided to recognize entirely my studies completed in Romania in 1966 as equivalent to their own studies in 1989, sending me congratulations for the level of the courses I had attended, many of them still inaccessible to Italian students, twenty-five years after I had completed them. I thus had new confirmation of the quality of university education in Romania, particularly that in the area of Automation and Computers.

Nevertheless, the same faculty council did not agree to recognize my 1966 diploma thesis, recommending that I present a new thesis to the faculty's graduation committee. The head of the Department of Computer Engineering, Professor Giorgio Ausiello, holder of the course in Theoretical Computer Science, apologized for this unjust decision, but explained that it could not be changed.

“Very well, I will prepare a new thesis,” I told him, having one possibility in mind. “But I need a thesis supervisor. That is the custom in Romania.”

“It is the same here. Considering the courses you have taught and your research, I would suggest you contact Professor Carlo Batini, a specialist in databases,” Ausiello answered. “If you agree, I will call him today to arrange a meeting.”

I accepted, although it was not clear to me why Ausiello considered me a database specialist. In our discussions I had not mentioned my research in that field. Databases were not the strongest point of my training. Although I had implemented and used many databases, I had not done research in that field. On the other hand, I thought that no one in Ausiello's department was then working in Software Engineering, where I could have been considered a specialist.

Batini and the impossible thesis

I went to the meeting with Batini carrying the proofs of my book Integrating Tools for Software Development, which was to appear in the United States. I had just received them from Prentice Hall for a final correction. I had decided to propose to Batini that I write a thesis starting from the ideas I presented in the book. One of those ideas was a database for interforms, a concept introduced in the book to designate the various interrelated representations (descriptions) of a software product. I could, for example, have designed the database described in the book as the core of a tool for managing successive modifications of a software product during a project. With such a tool, the successive representations of the product throughout its life cycle are stored in the database and systematically controlled for consistency, so that, on the one hand, the product maintains its integrity over time and, on the other, the software process can be traced throughout the project life cycle. The function of such a tool would, in later years, be called “configuration management”, adopting a name used in U.S. military-industry projects.

This database was different from the databases of traditional information systems because it had to store not only data, but also processes. Thus, besides modeling data with entities and attributes, which provides the static view of the system, my database also required process modeling, processes themselves being raised to the rank of entities, by making explicit the succession of events and interactions among components, which provides a dynamic view of the system. The design of my database would have had to ensure dynamicity for the stored entities, with the relations among entities also established dynamically.

Batini was a presentable man of about forty, already a professore titolare at that time. He received me with an air of superiority difficult to justify, especially in relation to a fellow professor. Although he knew from Ausiello that I too was a university teacher, he displayed a distant, almost condescending attitude. He followed my presentation only up to a point, then became bored and interrupted me.

“I am not interested in such databases,” he told me dryly. In fact, he was not interested in Software Engineering, about which he probably knew little. A few years earlier he had written only a book on FORTRAN programming. Batini was interested only in static relational databases, specific to traditional information systems.

“I will set the thesis topic,” he added, without giving me the possibility to defend my proposal.

“When could I have the thesis defense?” I asked.

“That depends on you. At the earliest in six months, if you devote yourself to this objective. You will, however, have to write several articles,” Batini answered calmly.

“But I work eight hours a day in order to support my family,” I told him hesitantly.

“That does not matter. You will defend the thesis in a year, of course, if you can devote at least four hours a day to it,” he answered impassively.

It was clear that he did not care about my situation. His only interest was for me to write articles that would enrich his list of publications, without showing any respect for my effort or personal circumstances.

Obviously, I gave up the idea of obtaining a degree title from the University of La Sapienza. A few months after this episode, the equivalence of academic titles between Italy and Romania was announced, which also solved the reason for my intervention, namely to have an academic title officially recognized in Italy.

The irony of time

Years passed, and Carlo Batini's activity took an interesting turn. It seems that professorship was not to his liking, since for almost two decades he left the university to work in a public administration authority. When he eventually returned to academia, he ended up working on web services and big data, where exactly the type of databases I had proposed to him in 1990 are used.

Conclusion

These academic adventures did not bring me a place in the Italian university, but they gave me a necessary lesson. I understood that, in exile, one's professional past is not enough. It must be recognized by the system one enters, and that system has its own barriers, rituals and interests.

The meeting with Böhm remained for me the luminous part of this experience: a great computer scientist who knew how to explain, with simplicity and honesty, what I had to learn painfully. The meeting with Batini, on the contrary, showed me how quickly a competence can be reduced to its usefulness for someone else. Between these two experiences, one of my first understandings of academic Italy took shape.

Back to “Emigration” · Back to “Memoirs” · Top